John Potter’s role at Raith Rovers is to coordinate everything in the football department.
Given the short-term aspects of football, long-term structures are required.
There have understandably been things thrown up that are novel to him, but his rounded experience gained from various roles since hanging up his boots has stood him in good stead.
Now technical director at Raith, Potter’s job is to “take away as much as possible” from manager Ian Murray.
Things like overseeing scouting and spending hours on the phone with players and agents.
As well as carrying this out – to great effect so far given the start to the campaign – he is also around training sessions to lend a helping hand.
At points last season, Murray didn’t have an assistant manager.
Now he has the training-ground expertise of Colin Cameron and Potter to call upon.
John Potter: There’s a lot going on behind the scenes
“I still go out on the pitch, I had a conversation earlier with Ian,” Potter tells Courier Sport. “That’s where I’ve been since I stopped playing.
“So I still go out and help Ian and Colin and the guys. Whether that’s helping out, taking part, a different set of eyes, giving Ian a break. Whatever it is.
“I’ve still got that little fix myself where I can help with the day-to-day.
“There’s a lot going on behind the scenes, my job is to take as much of that away from Ian as possible, let him concentrate on the team, the coaching and the training.
“I do a lot of the work in the background, especially a lot of the groundwork on players. I think it’s really important that we do that.”
Work on January targets
This is what takes up the bulk of Potter’s time. It’s why almost every new signing has mentioned his name in their first interviews.
Targets have been and are being identified for January and beyond and a lot of changes have been made to how things work behind the scenes, whether that’s personnel or methodology.
“That’s a constant thing that we’ve now got up and running and we’re quite happy with that,” adds Potter.
“We’ve got scouts out at games constantly, we’re looking at players.
“That’s quite a lot of work and what a lot of my attention goes to – all the different departments and all the different changeovers as well – some personnel, some the way we work.”
Like everyone else at Raith, he is sobered by the realisation that there is still a long way to go, on and off the park.
Setting standards
To get there, behind the scenes at least, he sounds comfortable with being seen as “a bit of a moan” to get his point across.
“It’s important that we try and build something long-term,” he says. “It’s up to me to try and drive that from a football side.
“People probably think I’m a wee bit of a moan because I’m on at people quite a lot.
“But it’s things that I believe in and things to do with why I’ve been brought here, to drive these standards.
“So far, we think we’ve made decent progress but there’s still a long way to go.”
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